The Athletic Hockey Show - Canucks trade JT Miller back to the Rangers

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

Max and Laz are back again on a Friday night to give their instant reaction to the Canucks finally trading JT Miller, Jackson Dorrington, and Erik Brannstrom to the Rangers in exchange for Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini, and a protected first-round pick. Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Well, as the NHL GMs have decided that you and I are going to be getting together on Friday nights from now on, because a week after the Miko Ranton and Blockbuster, here we are again. This time it is the Vancouver Canucks and the New York Rangers linking up on a Friday night blockbuster deal. Rangers are getting back J.T. Miller, as well as Eric Brandstrom and Jackson Doorington. Vancouver is getting Philippeal, Defenseman Victor Mancini, and a protected first-round pick. I believe that protection is top 13. So likely they're getting that first round pick this year in 2025.

What do you think? I thought we were here to think about Sabers Predators, the big game going on right now. There was a trade. This is a new Friday night tradition, as all the big trades are like Friday night news dumps now. I don't think anyone's surprised by this trade, right? I mean, this basically with the same general framework of this trade almost went down weeks ago. and they just kind of kept hammering it out. There was a market of one.

That's all Vancouver could do. The only team they could trade J.T. Miller to was the New York Rangers because he basically had all the power in that. The Rangers were interested, and this was inevitable. That said, it's a terrible trade for the Canucks. Like, it's just, they were not going to get a good return. Like, no matter what, they were going to get screwed. But they traded a guy who's been in the top ten in scoring the last three seasons.

More points than Mitch Marner, than Sidney Crosby, then Elias Pedersen. I mean, Elias Pedersen, excuse me, I got in trouble for that last time. He, he's having a bad year. Everyone in Vancouver's having a bad time. But this is an elite high-end scorer. And they got like nothing for them. They got bits and pieces. They got flotsam and jets them.

I mean, this is not a good deal. But what you said, I think is key, right? The market dictates what the return is, right? Yeah. And when a guy has a full. This is like when you're trading Claude Roo and he only wants to go to Florida, you get what you can get. Like this isn't, it's not Vancouver's fault that they didn't get the kind of return you would expect, you know, Colorado trades Miko Ranthinen and gets Marty Naches back.

Getting Philip Heedle back is not the same thing. Heel's a nice player. He's a middle six guy at best. He is an injury risk. He's not a point to game guy. Like they get a first round pick, but it's going to be a mid to late first round pick. Like they got nothing that you could really like cling to other than they got freedom for Elias Peders. Yeah.

I mean, really the analog here to me is the Beau Horv. deal, right? And Beau Horvett was a pending free agent, so it's a different circumstance. You're trading away a lot more controlled years of the player than you were back when you had Beauorvette, and maybe that does affect this. But back then, I think it was Atu-Ratu, Anthony Bovillier, and a first-round pick that was pretty much in that same range. That was the pick that ended up going, they flipped it to Detroit for Philip Hironic, and then Detroit took, I think, Pelican, so if it ends up in the same range, late teens there. If you're Vancouver, do you flip this pick? and try to go for something this year?

Or are you sitting on this pick and planning to make it? I don't know. That's the thing about these two teams right now is I don't know where they stand. I don't know where they believe they stand. You know, Vancouver, you know, they can still make the playoffs this year. And I'd rather see them flip the pick and try to, you know, capitalize on Pedersen's Prime than than not. So, yeah, if you can, go for it. But they're not going to be better than they were with J.T. Miller.

Like they're not going to get a J.T. Miller back for that first round pick. There's just not a guy out there. like that. As scuffly as his season's been, there's not a guy out there that's going to give that to them. And then he got the Rangers and they're like the oldest team in the history of hockey now up front. They got all 32, 33 year olds up front. They're all signed through 2030 other than Panera and who signed through next year. They got this young defensive core. I don't know. Are they trying to win now? Do they think, I mean, a month ago, we were talking about firing Peter Lavillette and now they're making all in like win now trades. I don't know where either of these two teams stand.

And I don't think they do either. Well, let's stay on Vancouver for a second. Then we'll hit the New York side of this. Because I look at it when you trade Miller, like this was going to come to an end one of two ways. They were going to trade Miller or they were going to trade Pedersen. By trading Miller, I think there's more avenues on the table. You can make a trade for someone and try to win now. Pedersons in his prime.

Quinn is in his prime. Corona is in his prime, right? You have a lot of guys like that. But they're also younger. Like if they do want to make this, hey, we're going to take a year or two and retool, you are still retooling around these same place. Whereas with Miller, you had to go right now. He's 31.

That cliff can come in any time. So they have taken the path that allows them either avenue here, right? Yeah, no, you're not wrong there. It's difficult to retool on the flight. We see a lot of teams attempt that and then they kind of get stuck in the mud, right? Like they had, to win in this league, you need to have two or three like stud players, right? And they had them. And then you had a goalie with Demko, too.

You had the pieces. And slowly those pieces are kind of fallen by the wayside here. And poor Quinn Hughes and Pedersen are just sitting there going, well, what are we now? Are we trying to win the Stanley Cup this year or are we just running in place? Especially because you have another going to be a high profile situation, I would imagine, as we move in the next five weeks, as Brock Besser is a pending UFA and you've got to make a decision there. So if you ship out Besser and Miller in the same season, it's hard for me to take you seriously as a contender. But if they can get the right guy moving forward, now I don't want to speculate too hard and throw a bunch of names out here.

But if they could get a young player or something, a player in their prime in that same age window, I think that's the way that you try to win this trade. Because I don't think you're replacing Miller with even if it's the 16th, 17th, 18th to pick him the draft. Your odds of getting a guy who's going to come anywhere close to Miller's impact are low, and it's not going to be for three, four years. And it is such a bummer too, right? Because last year, Vancouver was this great story. They kind of came out of nowhere that they're all of a sudden,

they were going to be contenders. And they looked like they were built for the long haul. Hughes is this megastar. Pedersen is this great player. Miller is a 100 point guy and everything is coming up Vancouver. And it just all falls apart, right? And now you're just, you know, does anyone see this team even if they go out and they add somebody? Does anybody see this team competing with Dallas, with Edmonton, with even Colorado without Ranton?

It's just, it's hard to see where this team is. They're just going to be kind of stuck in that seventh to 10th place range where nobody ever wants to be when it seemed like they were on the up and up. And again, not really their fault. it's the fault of Pedersen and Miller for not being able to, you know, suck it up and work together. And that might be an untenable situation. Yes. And that might be the real question of how this deal works out. Because honestly, you can take the L on this trade as long as you get back the Pedersen that you thought you were getting when you signed him to the $11 million extension a couple years ago, $11.6 million, I should say, per year extension.

If you continue to get an Elias Pedersen, who's going to score below a point per game and you just trade a JT. Miller out the door and you're going to be stuck with that contract for that production, that's where this gets really tough. But honestly, if you just take the return as it is and Pedersen goes back to being 100 point center, I think you're fairly happy. You're right. I mean, Pedersen is the most important part of this. But it also doesn't really speak all that well of Pedersen.

He needs this to play well, right? Like if you're a grown up and you're a professional athlete and you need the mean guy to go away so that you can go play hard, like that's, that doesn't speak well of Pedersen to me from the outside looking in. Like, I don't know, I don't know how bad it was inside that locker room, but it's hard for me to believe that it was so bad that he literally couldn't do his job. I agree. I think that's a real concern in all of this.

And you have to really be hoping that there is, that it is, I don't want to call it miraculous, but that it is a fairly rapid turnaround to that. And it gets normalized and you can say, hey, this was just a weird situation. And it's behind him. But that is ultimately the biggest bet they're making. And we will see where things go from here in Vancouver. All right, you teased it a second ago, Laz, on the Rangers side of things here. They get J.T. Miller. He's the best player in the deal.

They're the team that gets way better right now for all of this. And it's coming at a good time. They are not by any means a playoff lock right now. With the age of their star players, they need to be a playoff lock. This is the time in New York while you have Artemie Panarin and while he's really, really good, that you need to be given yourself every chance possible for a Stanley Cup. How much more seriously do you take their chances now with J.T. Miller? Well, I take them seriously because of Igor Shisterkin. That's a guy who can win any series on his own.

But yeah, they absolutely win this trade. They gave up very little for a superstar potential player. But were they at J.T. Miller away from being what they were last year when they won the president's trophy? I don't think so. This is still a team that's not in the playoff picture right now and is fighting with, I think it's nine other teams for two spots. So there's a lot of runway ahead of them. And I don't know if J.T. Miller is what they, it doesn't hurt, but I still don't see this team as a guaranteed playoff lock. And if they get there, it's going to be on E.R. Schisturkens back more than it is J.T. Miller's. What it will do well is it will bring significant toughness in the line. Obviously, Miller's going to score. He's going to do it with hard offense, which I think is important.

And I think they could use a little bit of his attitude, like that attitude that was toxic in Vancouver. I think they might need a little bit of that in New York. That is the question is how is that going to play? Right? And he's been there before, but it's been a long time. And we're going to see how it plays there. Because that is the X factor here to me. Because he has to mesh with this core fairly quickly, like we just said. You look, you go down there roster and all of the key players except for Alexei Lafranier, Adam Fox, Keandre Miller, and I guess the ascending Will Cooley are getting up there, right? You're talking about Artemian Panera in age 33, because of Banajette, 31. Chris Kreider, 33. Vincent Trochec, it's time to win right there right now. And there's not. really that much time to maneuver if this doesn't go well pretty quick.

Right. So it could be, it could take time to assimilate a player with Miller's kind of mindset into a locker room. We don't know how quickly it'll happen. It might happen overnight. He might just instantly change the DNA of this team. He might have that kind of effect. And if he does, then that's great. If he doesn't, you know, and they kind of scuffle a little bit and they keep, I mean, again, a month ago, we were talking about firing Peter Lavillette. And now they're adding in a win now move. It's, it's kind of bizarre. But I also kind of understand it's so low risk for them, right? I mean, J.T. Miller is signed through 2030.

That sounds scary. Eight million dollar cap it. That sounds scary. Well, in three years, $8 million is going to be 7% of the cap. The cap is going up so astronomically. We learn that it's going to be, what, 113.5 million in three years. Yes. J.T. Miller is going to be, he's going to be middle class at that point.

Like, you can absorb that. He's going to fall off. He's signed through 37 years old. He's going, that contract is going to age poorly. but the cap's going up so much that it might not matter. So it's a low risk move. It is the equivalent, his contract, which is $8 million, is the equivalent of 6.2 on today's cap in 27, 28.

And we assume it's going to go up more from there. It's going to keep going. In 2027, 28, those are estimate numbers. That cap could be higher by 2728 than even the eye-popping numbers that the NHL announced on Friday. So you're right. That is actually a rather substantial part of this because I think Miller's age and contract would have been two reasons that his market would have been tepid.

You mentioned obviously the earlier ones, the no move clause and all that. But I think the salary cap going up gives Vancouver kind of the license to take a shot like this, especially when some of these other older players that we're mentioning are going to come off the books, namely Panarin will be off the books. Riley Smith will be off the books in the interim between now and that. And on paper, it looks great, right? I mean, look what you have up the middle. You've got Vincent Trocheck, J.T. Miller, and Mika Zabandad probably slots down to the number three center, which is probably a better fit for him at this stage of his career, even though he is also signed, I think, until like the year 4096.

But it deepens the lineup because you strength down the middle. You still got Panarin on the wing. You got Smith on a wing. There's a lot to like here if they can kind of make it work. But they haven't been able to make it work for months now. We thought like a couple weeks ago, oh, they're coming out of it. They're back. The Rangers are back.

And then they're, oh, wait, no, they're not. So I don't know what to make of this Rangers team. So I don't know what to make of this trade. If the Rangers were good, like just flat out good and in the playoffs, this would be such a home run of a trade. It would be a plus plus plus plus. But given where they are now, maybe that first round pick could have been spent better. Maybe Philip Heed is a guy you could have built around and retooled around.

It's so hard to say because we just don't know what these Rangers are. And if you're trying to win in that Panarin window, I don't know how that's possible given what we've seen for the majority of the season. Well, it's possible for a reason that we discussed a week ago. Well, it's Chesterkin, but also the East does not have that team that you're like, how is anybody going to beat these guys? And when you look at the Rangers roster, you're now talking about a team that not just has Chesterkin, but has Adam Fox, has J.T. Miller, as our Temi Panarin.

That might be as good of a top four players as anyone in the East can boast. Is that fair? That's fair, yeah. I mean, maybe Florida, you know, you got Kachuk and Barkoff and Reinhardt and. and, you know, Foresling, like there's, Abrovsky, like there's a lot of pieces there, too. But the problem is, these guys haven't been playing like top players.

J.T. Miller has not been a top player this year. Artemey Panarin has not been at his usual standard. Kreider and Zabatjad have been, you know, we've been talking about trading them for months because they haven't been playing the way they need to. So, again, on paper, it looks great. In theory, sounds awesome. If you told me at the beginning of the season,

they were going to do this, I'm like, Ranger's going to win the cup. But none of these guys has played that way this year. And, you know, again, unless Miller is like this magical catalyst that just crystallizes everything, it all might be just for naught. And they might just be having a very old team for years to come. Well, what doesn't take magic is the slotting effect, though. And you alluded to it. If Zabanajad is your number one center or even your number two center, we'll say he's been their number two center so far.

I think it's fair to say that you're feeling itchy. you're probably not a true contender. If he's your three center and if he's got Chris Kreider on his wing as your third line, you have Zabanajad and Kreider, how much does that play up by the difference in the matchups that they will now take? How much are they freed up? How much is the weight of expectations lessened on them to play their game as they get into their 30s and they can now be impact players in that deployment?

So J.T. Miller's played a bunch of left wing in his career. You have no interest in putting them on a wing with, you know, with Procheck or with Sabanagan. The problem is Panarin can't play the right side. Miller doesn't really play the right side. Kreider doesn't really play the right side. So you got all these left wings kind of stacked. Lafranier.

Yeah, but Lafranier can play the right side. So wouldn't you be tempted to do, you know, J.T. Miller, Procheck and Lafranier. Well, that line would be a pain in the ass. I mean, that is a playoff nightmare line. It's tempting. Absolutely. Yes. I would consider that.

It's tempting to use J.T. Miller the way Edmonton uses Leon Drysenaean, right? Yes, he's your number two center. but you can also at any time you want deploy the nuclear option, put them on the top line, and just go nuts, right? I mean, it's better if you can keep them apart because your opponent has to pick their poison. I get that. But J.T. Miller can play the wing. So his versatility gives you a lot of options with these kind of big gun scorers they have.

We talked about where the Rangers sit today. Is it matter at all to you where this pick conveys? I mean, outside of obviously it's protected in the top 13, so you're safe there. but if this is the 14th pick in the draft, you still feel really good about trading this for Miller, yeah? Or has that become more question? Entering this season, you'd have to think the Rangers were like, we're probably going to wind up trading our first round pick for somebody.

And if you told it was going to be J.T. Miller, they would have been kicking their heels up. So I got, yeah, the fact that it's protected is huge because we can see the Rangers just completely melting down. We've already seen it. They've lost, what was it 15 out of 19 games at one stretch this season. So you can absolutely see them tumbling into the lottery. The fact that it's protected and then would go to 2026,

unprotected if it winds up in the top 13 absolutely huge for the Rangers. Again, this is such a good trade for the Rangers in a lot of ways. It's so low risk for them. Well, I don't know. I see that a little bit differently because I think if they do crater and that pick is like 12th this year and it's covered by the protection, that's going to not inspire very much confidence in me that they're going to stay out of the bottom 10 next year. And then you're talking about trading away a top 10 pick as you have all these aging guys and your core is crumbling and you could really use a top 10 pick. So I think that is some risk.

I would put the percent chance of it happening below 20 percent, but there is some chance of that. And if it doesn't work fast, we just talked about the clock that all of the top players in New York pretty much are on. That is a risk. So that's the nightmare scenario. You're absolutely right. It's unlikely,

but that's the nightmare scenario. More likely than not, it's going to be like they're just kind of stuck next year like they are this year, and this isn't going to make them any better or worse. Like Vancouver is a worse team tomorrow than they were on Friday morning, like without question. Yeah. The Rangers might be better, might be the same. They certainly didn't get any worse.

Best case scenario, do you see, like, are we talking to Stanley Cup in best case scenario for you? Or is it more like get back to the conference final? Again, that wouldn't be because of J.T. Miller would be because of Igor Shesterner. That's how good he is. If you have the best goalie in the world, you can win the Stanley Cup. I would not be putting money on the New York Tray just to win the Cup this year. I don't think they're going to win the cup this year. But if they do, it's not going to be because of J.T. Miller.

No offense to J.T. Miller. And median outcome is, welcome to your Pittsburgh Penguins era. Yeah, that's exactly it. We saw Chicago be there. Tampa Bay is going to be there in a couple of years. It happens to, you know, father time comes for us all. And the differences, the Rangers haven't won anything. Going to be very interesting to see this one unfold.

We'll hit a lot more on this on Monday. We'll talk to you then.